Factors That Influence Parents’ Choice of Public Schools and Private Schools
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The objective of the study is to investigate the factors that influence parents’ choice of public schools and private schools in Nigeria. However, the specific objectives are:
- To examine the factors that encourage parents to choose private schools for their children
- To understand the reasons which convince parents to avoid public school while choosing school for their children
- To compare parents’ perspectives concerning school choice.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction
This section provides a review of the previous works done in related contexts. Principally, this section presents a review of parents‘ choice of types of schools and previous empirical findings on private schools, and highlights of the contributions and challenges faced by private schools and theory that explains incentives of parents‘ school choice decision as well as conceptual framework.
Factors Influencing Parent Choice of Type of School
This section discusses the factors that influence parents‘ choice of types of schools. Literature review reveals that parent school choice is based on certain factors such as the quality of education, convenience and safety of students, religious affiliations of schools and socioeconomic background of parents (Goldring and Philips, 2008). These factors have direct and indirect influence on parents‘ choice of types of schools.
Socio-Economic Background of Parent and Parent Head
There is an argument that if parents perceive schooling as an investment good, then parent income in principle should not directly affect the parent decision to invest in education (Behrman and Knowles, 1999 cited in Akaguri, 2011; Colclough, et al., 2003). However, the fact is that the non-poor parents are more likely to have better information about the benefits of education and quality of schools and therefore are more likely to take risk in investing in their children‘s education (Bray and Bunly, 2005; Goldring and Philips, 2008 and Akaguri, 2011). The socio -economic differences of parents and parent heads or parents impact on their school choice. Parent income or assets which are normally proxy for parent resources are also positively related to educational choice (Shneider, et. al., 1996 cited in Akaguri, 2011).
The segment of poorer or disadvantaged families accessing private schooling is often relatively small when compared with higher-income families. According to Harma (2008), an increase in education expenditure is likely to be correlated with parent income and private school choice. In India, for example, Härmä and Rose (2012) found that only 10% of children from the poorest quintile were accessing private schools in their study area, compared with 70% of the richest quintile. A similar study in rural India by Härmä (2011) found that a smaller portion of children of unskilled laborers attending private schools than of children of farmers or skilled workers. The socio-economic differences of parents and parent heads or parents impact on their school choice. The lower the parent income, the less the parent‘s ability to bear the costs associated with private schooling and the greater the likelihood that the child will either not be enrolled or will be enrolled in a public, rather than a private, school. For instance, according to Shneider et al. (1996) cited in Akaguri (2011), parent income or assets which are normally proxy for parent resources are positively related to educational choice. For Smrekar and Goldring (1999), the higher the income raises the parent‘s capacity to afford the cost of private education increases. The higher parents‘ income the more likely they enroll their children in private schools compared with their low income parent counterparts. The children from better socio-economic background enroll in private schools, while children from lowest socio-economic background enroll in government schools because of their parents‘ inability to afford the cost of private schooling. This is because income is one of the most important factors which affect most of human social and economic decisions (Rehman et al., 2010). For instance, Kingdon (1996) and Harma (2008) found that in rural and urban India respectively parents who owned economic assets were more likely to enroll their children in private schools comparative to parent without such economic assets. According to Aldermana et al. (2001) as parent income increases, schooling choices move very rapidly away from government school and no school options towards private school. With economic and social capital, relatively affluent parents are more able to afford private schooling, and more likely to choose private schools.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
The success of any research depends largely on the methodologies and procedures adopted and utilized to carry out the research. This section focuses on background information of the study area, a research design, population, sample and sampling techniques, data collection instruments, quality assurance, data analysis techniques and ethical issues in data collection.
Population Size, Structure and Composition of Uyo
The population of the Municipality, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census, was 147,788 representing 6.4 percent of the region‘s total population. Males constitute 48.5 percent and females represent 51.5 percent. A greater percentage of the population (64.5%) lives in urban areas as compared with 35.5 percent in the rural areas. The Municipality has a sex ratio of 94.5. The population of the Municipality is youthful (13.6%) of the 0-4 age group, depicting a broad base population pyramid which tapers off with a small number of the 70 plus years (3.0%). The total age dependency ratio for the Municipality is 75.2, the age dependency ratio for males is higher (78.9) than that of females (71.9).
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Respondents distribution by age
The age of the head teacher is an indicator of the length of experience of the head teacher. An older head teacher is likely to have moved up the ranks over a long working period, thereby gaining valuable experience to supervise the educational process. Age of respondents was used to depict the respondents’ characteristics in terms of experience. Thus, the study sought to establish head teachers’ age distribution. Table 4.4 presents the study findings.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents the summary of the study findings and the conclusions. The chapter further outlines recommendations of the study in line with the study objectives.
Summary of the study
The purpose of the study was to investigate the school related factors influencing parental choice of public and private schools in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were; to determine the influence of adequacy of physical facilities, academic performance, student- teacher ratio, and school’s proximity to area of residence on parental choice of public and private school. This study was based on the Rational Choice Theory pioneered by George Homans (1961). The study used descriptive survey design. The target population of this study constituted school heads and parents from both public and private primary schools in Uyo.
Stratified sampling was used to divide two subgroups of public schools and private schools. Systematic sampling was used to pick respondents from each of the sub groups. Data was collected using questionnaires for head teachers, questionnaires for parents and an observation checklist. Content validity of the questionnaires and the checklist was established through expert judgment of the supervisors and conducting a pilot study, while test-retest method was used to establish reliability. Data collected were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The study realized a total response rate of 89.8 percent, which was deemed very satisfactory for the purpose of the study.
Summary of the study findings
The first research objective sought to determine the influence of the adequacy of physical facilities on parental choice of public and private school. The study findings revealed that there was a significant influence of physical facilities on parental choice of school. The study showed that public and private primary schools had a distinct difference in the provision of adequate physical facilities. In the private school category, 61.5 percent had well-stocked libraries compared to 15.8 percent of public primary schools. There was a difference in availability of classrooms with 31.6 percent of public schools having more than 20 classrooms compared to 18.9 percent of private schools. In public primary schools, 71.9 percent had adequate playgrounds compared to 16.2 percent of private schools. The relationship between physical facilities and parental choice of school scored a variance of 90.7%. The findings showed that adequacy of physical facilities in public and private primary schools differed thus influencing parental choice of public and private school.
Objective two of the study sought to establish the influence of academic performance on parental choice of public and private school. From the study findings majority of the public primary schools have been reporting below average performance while majority of the private schools have registered above average mean scores. The findings were an indication that past performances registered by different categories of schools influenced parental choice of schools for their children. Majority of the study respondents were in strong agreement on the statements that showed the relationship between NECO mean scores and their preference of school types. However, the statements that predicted the strong association of academic performance with parental choice of schools scored and mean of 5.8. The findings showed that majority of the parents were influenced by the schools’ academic performance in choosing schools for their children.
The third objective sought to examine the influence of student-teacher ratio on parental choice of public and private school. Majority (94.7%) of the public primary schools had a student population above 500 while 54.8 percent of the private primary schools had a student population below 250. A majority (73.6%) of public school heads had more than 20 teachers compared to 29.9 percent of head teachers in private schools. A majority (54.4%) of the head teachers in private schools indicated that their schools had between 11 and 16 teachers. The study revealed that majority (57.9%) of the public primary school heads indicated that their schools have between 51 and 60 students per class, while majority (71.6%) of the private schools had less than 40 students per class. The findings were an indication that majority of public schools had larger than the recommended class size of 40 students per class. However, majority of the parents from public schools indicated high student-teacher ratio than those in private primary schools. Thus, the study findings showed that the student-teacher ratio had a significant influence of parental choice of school.
Objective four of the study assessed the influence of school’s proximity to area of residence on parental choice of public and private school. According to the study findings the most common mode of transport (58.1%) used is school transport. Walking to school scored a significant response (39.8%) on being commonly used, public transport is fairly common (23.7%) while pick and drop was not very common at 7.5 percent. The study revealed that majority of the parents’ responses were in agreement with the head teachers’ responses as they showed that their children did not have difficulties accessing their schools. The findings showed majority of the parents felt that physical facilities and academic performance were most important in influencing their choice of school than the other variables.
Conclusions of the study
The following conclusions were drawn from the research findings based on the objectives of the study: The availability, adequacy and appropriateness of the physical facilities had a significant influence on the parental choice of public and private school for their children. Parents showed a preference for schools with permanent buildings and good furniture. This is due to the association of the school learning environment with academic achievement.
Schools with past commendable track record of academic performance were believed to have higher preference among parents. Therefore, majority of the parents wanted to enroll their children in schools that had been registering good performance at NECO. Thus, the researcher concluded that the school’s academic performance had a great influence on the likelihood of parents choosing the school to enroll their children.
From the study findings, parents showed a higher preference for schools with lower student- teacher ratio. It was therefore established that student-teacher ratio had an influence on parental choice of public and private schools. Finally, the study established that majority of the students in primary schools in Uyo Sub- State easily accessed the schools. The students either walked to school or their parents made transport arrangements for them to commute to and from school. Therefore, the study findings concluded that the proximity to area of residence had a significant influence on parental choice of public and private schools.
Recommendations of the study
In view of the findings and conclusions of the study, the researcher would make the following recommendations in order to improve studies on the school related factors influencing parental choice of public and private schools;
- The findings revealed that physical facilities were inadequate in publicschools hence lowering the rate of parents preferring to enroll their children in this category of Therefore, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) in conjunction with other stakeholders should ensure adequate and appropriate physical facilities in order to meet the competitiveness of the private schools.
- The school Boards of Management and Parents Teachers Associations should ensure that they collaboratively join efforts to boost their schools’ academic performance so as to ensure that the schools do not draw a history of failure hindering parental preference of the
- The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) should work hand in hand to ensure that they deploy enough teachers in schools so as to help head teachers to implement the policy requirement on the student-teacher ratio in schools.
- Educationists should conduct forums where parents express their views and discuss their expectations on Through these forums, educationists can innovate ways of meeting both the parents’ expectations the educational needs of children.
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